International Journal of Humanities and Social Science
Vol. 3 No. 6 [Special Issue – March 2013]
A Comparative Study of Physical Activity and Cognitive Function of a Sample of
Elderly Nigerians Living In a Rural and an Urban Area
Eucharia O. Ejechi
Department of Sociology and Psychology
Delta State University
Abraka, Nigeria
Abstract
The study was undertaken to ascertain the difference in physical activity and cognitive function between elderly
(65-75 years) rural and urban-dwelling people using structured questionnaire and discussions. The activity
domains measured were work, housework, sports and volunteer work. Cognitive function was assessed by the sixitem screener method and self-rated memory. Rural-based elders had significantly higher physical activity score
(median=41.6 vs. 35.5, P=0.04, Mann-Whitney U test) than the urban-dwelling elders socio-demographic
variables (gender, age, education and income) notwithstanding. There was no significant difference in cognitive
function by overall assessment, but rural elders aged 71-75 or lowly educated (≤secondary), had significantly
higher cognitive function (P= 0.000/0.02) Rural elders reported significantly lesser physical pains (median=4.0
vs. 6.5, P=0.02). Significant physical activity/cognitive function (rural/urban: rs=0.48/0.42; P=0.005/0.01) and
physical activity/physical pain (rural/urban: rs=-0.49/-0.47; P=0.005/0.015) relationships occurred, but was
stronger with rural elders as indicated by the rs and P values. It can be concluded that the higher performance of
the rural elders is attributable to regular intense working exercises such as farming, fishing and hunting. The
need for some form of intense physical activity for the aged is therefore, indicated.
Keywords: Ageing, Physical activity, Cognitive function, Rural, Urban, Elderly Nigerians
Introduction
The relationship between activity and the risk of morbidity and mortality has in recent decades become subject of
intense research especially in gerontology (e. g. Patterson & Carpenter, 1994; Misra, Alexy & Panigrahi, 1996;
Menec, 2003). The Activity theory is one of the social theories of gerontology that addressed the relationship
between activity and the wellbeing of the aged. The theory was put forward by Havinghurst (1963) but formally
developed by Lemon, Begtson & Peterson, (1972) and elucidated by Rowe and Kahn (1997). The theory suggests
a positive relationship between activity and wellbeing where the frequency of activity promotes greater life
satisfaction and good health. Despite its popularity in gerontological literature, there is no universally agreed
definition of activity. Physical activity is one o the dimensions of activity that has been shown to be useful for
successful ageing.
The health benefits of physical activity defined by the Health Education Authority (1995) as the movement
produced by skeletal muscles that involves expenditure of energy has received considerable attention in the last
two decades. Reports have shown that regular physical activity has health benefits to all age groups. However for
older people the benefits include reduced risk of coronary heart disease and cancer of the colon (Morris et al.,
1990; Shaper et al., 1991; Giovannucci et al., 1995). Other benefits for the elderly are, prevention of memory loss
(Fabre et al., 1999) promotion of psychological well-being (Philips, Arber & Ginn, 2001) and improved
cardiovascular status, strength and functional capacity (Ntz, Wu, Becker & Tenebaum, 2005). Furthermore,
Lautenschlager et al (2008) reported that a six-month program of physical activity provided a modest
improvement in cognition over an 18-month follow-up period for older adults with subjective memory
impairment. The review by Rolland, van Kan & Vellas (2010) showed that regular physical activity has protective
effect on brain functioning in elderly population. It is therefore important that elderly people be encouraged to
undertake regular physical activities.
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It is well known that neuromuscular coordination, muscle strength and physiological capacity for exercise
consequently decline with age. Some of these factors may be due to illness or as the literature shows, result from
lack of physical exercise. Literature sources have shown that physical activities by older adults relate more to
house work and limited outdoor activities such as gardening and leisure (Dallosso et al. 1988; Morgan et al, 1991;
ELSA, 2002) while rigorous physical activity is reduced. However, the report by Byberg et al (2009) showed that
older men who indulged in high or vigorous physical activity had lower mortality rate than those with lower or
medium physical activity. Going by these reports it would be expected that mortality rates will be low among
Nigerians that work almost all through life or till serious physical disabilities set in. It would also be expected
that decline in cognitive function among such Nigerians would be low.
Work particularly when it entails farming, fishing and hunting is a vigorous exercise. Many Nigerians living in
the rural areas are farmers, fishermen, hunters or nomadic herdsmen who do not retire until physical disabilities
set in. Indeed the concept of work and retirement is a colonial heritage in Africa. It is common to see elderly
people along roads riding loaded bicycles or trekking long distances carrying farm products on their heads. Indeed
it is the belief of some Nigerians that the rural farmers and pastoralists live longer than their urban-dwelling
counterparts. This view tends to be supported by the incidents of early deaths of many retirees who returned to the
village to live sedentary lives. The returnee retirees miss the social activities of the urban areas that promoted their
wellbeing hence some of them return to the urban areas. However, the view that the old people in the rural areas
live longer and healthier lives with attendant limited cognitive decline than urban dwelling elders is a hypothesis
that needs empirical substantiation in the Nigerian setting. A preliminary comparative study of the physical
activities and cognitive function of a sample of old people living in a rural and an urban centre was therefore,
undertaken to test the hypothesis. The outcome may be useful in the campaign to promote physical activity for
healthy old age and its attendant reduction of medical care costs burden of these senior citizens.
Method
Data Source
The data for the study was obtained from respondents aged between 70 and 75 years living in a rural farming and
fishing community and an urban centre. The farming/fishing community (Utchi) is located on the bank of River
Niger while the town Kwale) is the administrative headquarter of a Local Government Area. Unlike the rural
community, facilities for recreation (outdoor and indoor sports, swimming pools e.t.c.) and social life are
available in the urban centre used for this study. In addition the town has a well equipped Government hospital
manned by qualified doctors, nurses and laboratory technicians. The rural community has only a Health Centre
manned only by nurses and Para-medical personnel. The lives of the rural dwellers merely centre on their fishing,
farming and the seasonal festivals. Social life is limited to friendly exchange of visits on market days when they
are not expected to be at work. Both the rural and urban communities are located in the Delta State of Nigeria.
Respondents numbering 100 were randomly selected at 50 per community for the study. The socio-demographic
variables considered for the study included gender, age, education and income.
Measures
A compendium of physical activities based on observation and discussions with some elderly men and women
aged 65-75 years in the localities of the study was drawn up (Table 1). The central theme of the discussions was
on their activities within and outside their homes. A one-on-one interview with the respondents was conducted
using a structured questionnaire containing scales for measuring physical activities, cognitive impairment, and
physical pains. For the measurement of the frequency of the activity types listed in Table 1, a 1-5 single item scale
was developed and tested in pilot studies for reliability. The Cronbach’s alpha stood at 0.75. The respondents
were asked to indicate the extent of their involvement in each of the activity type (1, none; 2, on rare occasions; 3,
some of the time; 4, most of the time; and 5, all the time). The scores were calculated for each activity type and
domains and combined to obtain the overall activity score.
Two standardised scales, a six-item screener to identify cognitive impairment (Callahan et al., 2002) and a single
item self-rated memory scale routinely used in gerontological studies were used to assess the cognitive function of
the respondents. With respect to the six-item scale, the words apple and penny were substituted with orange and
“kobo”, respectively. The word kobo is more familiar than penny and it is the lowest Nigerian money
denomination.
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Vol. 3 No. 6 [Special Issue – March 2013]
Correct answer to each of the six items scores 1 while it is 0 for an incorrect one (maximum point=6). For the
self-rated memory test, the respondents were requested to rate their present ability to recall or remember events on
a scale of: poor, 1; fair, 2; good, 3; very good, 4; and excellent, 5. High scores indicate good cognitive function.
Two questions designed to elicit information on physical pains were adopted from SF-36 Health Survey
questionnaire. The respondents were requested to indicate the severity of any pains they had in the last four weeks
(1, none; 2, very mild; 3, mild; 4, moderate; 6, severe or 7, very severe) and if the pains interfered with their
normal activity (1, not at all; 2, a little bit; 3, moderately; 4, quite a bit or 5, extremely). The scores for both scales
were combined (maximum point=12) and used for the analyses of the physical pains data.
Data Analyses
The ordinal data was not normally distributed hence median and range scores were used for descriptive analyses.
The differences in the physical activity domain scores between the rural and urban-dwelling old people were
analysed with Mann-Whitney U test while graphs were used to illustrate the variation and differences in activity
types. Mann-Whitney U test was also used to analyse the rural/urban differences based on the overall physical
activity score and socio-demographic variables. Median values were also presented for the cognitive function
index and physical pains’ scores while the rural/urban differences were similarly tested with Mann-Whitney U
statistics. Spearman’s correlation statistics was used to test the association between physical activity or physical
pain and cognitive function scores. The relationship between physical activity and physical pains was also
similarly analysed. The SPSS version 16 was used for the statistical analyses.
Results
The socio-demographic information of the samples of the elderly people is presented in Table 2. The median
value for the overall physical activities’ scores for both the rural and urban elders was generally less than 50% of
the maximum score (Table 3). However, as shown in Table 3, the overall physical activities’ scores showed that
rural elders tended to be significantly more active. Going by domain analyses, significant differences between the
rural and urban dwelling elders occurred only with working activity with the rural elders being more active and
volunteer work with the urban elders being more active (Table 3). The analyses of the overall activity score by
socio-demographic variables and Mann-Whitney U test showed that the rural elders remained significantly more
active in all variables particularly in the age group 71-75 (Table 4).
Further analyses by activity types showed that the superior score of the rural elders in the domain of working
activity, emanated from their markedly higher scores in hunting, river fishing and crop farming (Figure 1a). With
respect to activity types under the housework domain, there were no marked differences except in “gardening and
cleaning floor” where the urban elders scored higher (Figure 1a). Under the sports domain, urban elders were
more active in tennis and jogging while the rural old people scored higher in “cycling” and “rowing boat/canoe”
activity types (Figure 1b). Walking was the dominant sporting activity type for both groups as shown by the
higher and equal scores (Figure 1b). The urban elders had markedly higher scores in the three activity types of the
volunteer work domain (Figure 1b).
Compared to the maximum points, the median scores indicated average cognitive function irrespective of the
socio-demographic variables or the cognitive index (Table 5). The table further shows that when all respondents
were considered no significant difference in cognitive function occurred between the rural and urban elders.
However, the older respondents (71-75 years) and those with secondary or lower education among the rural elders
had significantly higher cognitive function than their urban counterparts (Table 5). Physical pains were generally
significantly lower with the rural elderly respondents (Table 6). Physical activity was related to cognitive function
whereas physical pains were not (Table 7). Furthermore, the relationship between physical activity and cognitive
function was stronger with the rural elders the cognitive index type notwithstanding (Table 7). However, physical
pain was significantly negatively related to physical activities with Spearman correlation coefficient of -0.47 for
urban elders (P=0.015) and - 0.49 for rural respondents (P=0.005).
Discussion
The findings of this study generally suggest that the overall physical activities of the old people tended to be low
(33-39% of max. points) as indicated by the median and values.
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However given the knowledge that the capacity for physical activities diminish with age for biological reasons,
such a performance can be considered acceptable and not really low, because it is far from being sedentary.
Although research reports suggest that the higher physical activity leads to greater health benefits (Byberg et al.,
2009), studies have also shown that modest physical activity in old age significantly enhanced physical capacity
(Paffenbarger et al., 1993; Stewart, 2005; Charansonney, 2011). Nevertheless, low physical activities have been
generally acknowledged as common with elderly people (Dallosso et al., 1988; Morgan et al., 1991; Crombie et
al., 2004)). However, another observation is that the average low scores may not necessarily indicate poor
physical activity because participation may be selective. Indeed the results here revealed that the elders’ level of
participation varied with activity domain and type. This was buttressed by the finding that work and housework
domains contributed more to the overall activity performance of the rural elders. Even within the activity
domains, “crop farming” and “walking” activity types had the highest scores.
Generally the rural elders were significantly more active than their urban counterparts irrespective of the sociodemographic variables. The working activity domain tilted the scale in their favour with the major score
contributions coming from crop farming, river fishing, and hunting including rowing boats. Although rowing boat
or canoe was classified as sports, in reality it accompanied river fishing hence the urban dwellers never
participated. Indeed crop farming and river fishing entail intense physical actions, which the rural elders are
expected to be beneficiaries in terms of preserved physical capacity and cognitive function better than the urban
elders. The significantly lesser physical pains experienced by the rural elders as the findings show, suggest that
their physical capacity was indeed maintained.
However, this higher physical activity was not translated into higher cognitive function when the overall cognitive
index scores were considered, because there was no significant difference between the two groups. The urban
dwellers had opportunities for social interaction, recreation, leisure and sports that are not available to the rural
dwellers. For example the results showed that they scored higher in sporting activities which tended to make up
for the low scores in working activity. Socialization, recreation and leisure have been associated with cognitive
preservation and wellbeing in old people (Giles, Anstey, Walker & Luszcz, 2012; Iwasa, Yoshida, Kai, Suzuki,
Kim & Yoshida, 2012). Despite the absence of recreational facilities the rural elders were able to maintain
identical levels of cognitive function with the urban elders because of regular exercises involving trekking long
distances or riding bicycles to the farm, the manual system of farm work, hunting and fishing.
Although eclipsed by the overall score the finding that the older respondents (71-75) in the rural community had
significantly higher cognitive index scores than their urban counterparts substantiates the above research reports.
The inference is that the older respondents (71-75) in the urban area tend to become more sedentary unlike their
rural counterparts that continue to work till very old age. Working till very old age is consistent with the
traditional system where there is no formal retirement from work. In the course of the investigation some elders
above 80 years were seen going to their farms to supervise or even engage in weeding while those at home were
mainly the few retirees who “returned home” from the cities. Indeed in the course of discussions, some of the
elders expressed the belief that their farm work made them strong and would want to continue working. Indeed
one of them said: “My children complain when I go to the farm. They refuse to understand that staying at home
makes me sick”.
For the same working activity reasons, rural elders with low education (≤secondary) had significantly higher
cognitive index score than their urban counterparts. It is already known as the results here show that recreational
facilities like sports and volunteer work contributed the activity scores which compensated for the low score from
working activity. This compensation was not forth coming for the lowly educated urban elders probably due to
cost and class difference that made them engage less in recreation activities. One such urban elder had this to say:
How can I play Lawn or Table Tennis or swim when the facilities are in the premises of clubs
that I cannot be a member or afford to go to hotels that have the facilities. The secondary schools
where one may find such facilities are not open to everybody. All I do is walk to visit friends
when I am tired of staying at home.
Further differences between the rural and urban elders occurred in the strength of the significant positive
relationship between physical activity and cognitive function. The relationship was stronger and more significant
with the rural elders, thereby buttressing the finding, which indicated their higher physical activity.
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Although physical pains were not associated with cognitive function, its significant negative relationship with
physical activity was stronger with rural elders. This again reinforced the better physical activity of the rural
elders.
Although this report indicates that differences in physical and cognitive function between the rural and urbandwelling elderly people exist, literature sources have shown that recreation, leisure, and social engagement also
have profound positive effect on the wellbeing and cognitive function of old people. This study did not measure
the level of participation in the social and leisure engagement of the rural and urban elders, which may have
contributed to their cognitive processes. In addition the preponderance of physical disabilities and dietary habits
need to be investigated for further assessment of the benefits of physical activities in a Nigerian setting. These
limitations are being addressed in an on-going study.
Conclusion
The hypothesis that the rural elders are likely to be more physically active than their urban counterparts has been
sustained by the evidence from this study. However, only those above 70 years in the sample of the rural elders
had better cognitive function than those of similar age group among the urban elderly respondents thereby
indicating partial sustenance of the hypothesis with respect to cognitive function. Thus this report substantiates
the findings of other studies on the relationship between physical activity and cognitive decline. It further
indicated that the extent of cognitive preservation and enhancement of physical capacity may depend on
undertaking some intense physical activity as was observed with the rural elders that do regular fishing and farm
work.
The urban elders appear to become sedentary as they grow older, which is not healthy. An awareness campaign in
this regard becomes necessary in order to reduce ill-health and save cost of medical care. The urban elders also
need to be encouraged to undertake some intense physical activities like the rural elders that engage in regular
farm work. Access to gymnasium is limited and is not yet popular in Nigeria. Small scale farming is therefore, a
better option under this circumstance. What the rural elders lost by not having recreational facilities they made up
with farm work. This notwithstanding, their lives would be better if recreational facilities are made available
especially for “returnee” retirees that are yet to come to terms with farm work or fishing as a worthy physical
exercise in the rural setting.
Acknowledgement
The author is grateful to Professor B. O. Ejechi of the Faculty of Science, Delta State University, Abraka Nigeria
for assisting with statistical analyses.
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Table 1: Physical activities associated with the elderly in the rural and urban centres
Activity Domain
Work
Activity type
Available points/Domain
Crop farming
Fish farming (artificial ponds)
River/streams fishing
Livestock (poultry)
Hunting
Running a store/shop
30
Housework
Sweeping
Cleaning tile/rug carpet/floor
Cooking
Washing dishes
Laundry
Gardening
30
Sports
Table tennis
Lawn tennis
Cycling
Jogging
Walking
Rowing boat/canoe
30
Volunteer work
Red Cross
15
Road Safety Corps
Supervising community sanitation
Overall total score
105
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Table 2: Socio-demographic characteristics of the rural and urban-dwelling elders
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Variables
Respondents
------------------------------------------------------------------Rural elders
Urban elders
----------------------------------------------------N=50
%
N=50
%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Gender
Male
30
60
25
50
Female
20
40
25
50
Age
66-70
32
64
27
54
71-75
18
36
23
46
Education
≤Secondary
34
68
20
40
Post-secondary
16
32
30
60
Annual income
<N240,000.00
26
52
19
38
>N240,000.00 24
48
31
62
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------146
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Table 3: Frequency of physical activities of the elders
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Activity domain
Activity Score (median)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------Rural elders
Urban elders
*P
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Work
13.0 (3)
8.5 (4)
0.03
Housework
15.5 (4)
13.5 (5)
0.06
Sports
9.5 (3)
10.0 (4)
0.20
Volunteer work
0.5 (1)
2.0 (2)
0.04
All activities
41.6 (5)
35.5 (5)
0.04
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Significant difference (Mann-Whitney U test). Range values are in parentheses.
Table 4: Frequency of Physical activities by socio-demographic variables
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Variables
Overall activity score (median)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Rural elders
Urban elders
*P
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Gender
Male
38.5
31.0
0.03
Female
44.0
36.8
0.03
Age
61-70
44.0
36.4
0.03
71-75
40.5
29.8
0.00
Education
≤Secondary
45.6
36.4
0.02
Post-secondary
34.5
28.6
0.03
Annual income
<N240, 000.00
43.5
35.0
0.04
>N240, 000.00
36.0
25.0
0.02
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Significant difference (Mann-Whitney U test)
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Table 5: Cognitive function of the rural and urban-dwelling elders
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Variables
Cognitive index score (median)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------*By six item screener
**By self-rated memory
------------------------------------------------------------------Rural
Urban
***P
Rural
Urban ***P
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------All respondents
3.5
3.5
0.560
3.0
3.0
0.622
Gender
Male
3.0
3.5
0.062
2.5
3.0
0.465
Female
3.0
3.5
0.532
3.0
3.0
0.558
Age
61-70
4.0
4.0
0.764
3.5
4.0
0.321
71-75
4.0
2.5
0.005
3.5
2.0
0.034
Education
≤Secondary
4.0
2.5
0.004
3.5
2.5
0.025
Post-secondary 4.5
4.5
0.852
4.0
3.5
0.070
Annual income
<N240, 000.00 3.0
2.0
0.060
3.0
2.5
0.16
>N240, 000.00 4.0
4.5
0.084
3.5
4.0
0.153
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Maximum points=*6; **5. ***Significant difference (Mann-Whitney U test)
Table 6: Extent of physical pains experienced by the elders
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Variables
*Physical pains score (median)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Rural elders
Urban elders
**P
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------All respondents
4.0
6.5
0.02
Gender
Male
3.5
5.0
0.04
Female
5.5
7.0
0.04
Age
61-70
3.5
5.5
0.03
71-75
5.5
7.0
0.04
Education
≤Secondary
3.5
5.5
0.03
Post-secondary
4.5
6.5
0.03
Annual income
<N240, 000.00
3.5
6.0
0.02
>N240, 000.00
4.5
6.5
0.03
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Maximum point=12; **Significant difference (Mann-Whitney U test)
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Table 7: The relationship between physical pain/activities and cognitive function of rural and urban-dwelling elders
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Domain
Respondents’
Spearman’s Correlation coefficient (r s)
Location
---------------------------------------------------------------------Cognitive index: Six-item screener Self-rated memory
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Physical activities Urban
0.42 (0.010)
0.37 (0.036)
Rural
0.48 (0.005)
0.39 (0.025)
Physical pains
Urban
-0.12 (0.43)
-0.13 (0.54)
Rural
-0.09 (0.65)
-0.10 (0.55)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The values in parentheses are the P values computed from SPSS version 16.
Figure 1a: Physical activities of the rural and urban-dwelling elders: work and housework domains (max.
points per activity type=5)
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International Journal of Humanities and Social Science
Vol. 3 No. 6 [Special Issue – March 2013]
Figure 1b: Physical activities of the rural and urban-dwelling elders: sports and volunteer work domains
(max. points per activity type=5)
150